sharky60
Contributor
I will try to keep this short, but as many of you have read my trip reports before know I can get carried away, so here's the Reader's Digest version:
I got a phone call from a local radio station in late September letting me know I had won a trip to San Francisco to see the Rolling Stones.
The prize included 3 days/2 nights, (Nov. 14-16) at the Pan Pacific Hotel, transportation to the show at SBC Park and seats on stage to see the show.
We decided to extend the trip to include the proceeding weekend, and booked the extra days at the Pan Pacific.
We arrived on San Francisco on Friday, Nov. 11th and took the BART subway train from the airport to downtown S.F. After finding our bearings we walked the 3-4 blocks to the hotel and checked in. The Pan Pacific is a very nice 4 star hotel in the Union Square district of S.F., a perfect location to base your visit as it is right in the heart of downtown and with the city’s fantastic mass transit system, you can get almost anywhere from there very easily. Walking is also an option to many places from there.
Friday night we just walked around Union Square and got our bearings. We at a place called Max’s, there are several around town and have been around for a long time. They have an extensive menu, open for breakfast, lunch and diner. It was very good and one of many recommended places to eat that we hit on the trip.
Saturday we did a walking tour of Chinatown with Wok Wiz tours run by Chef Shirley Fong-Torres www.wokwiz.com The tour included visiting a fortune cookie factory, a Chinese market, a wok shop, an herb shop and a demonstration by a Chinese calligraphy artist, we purchased one of his paintings for a souvenir. The tour ended with a Dim Sum lunch at a place called Four Winds, I think, very tasty.
The rest of day we spent shopping in the Union Square area. Union Square is a park surrounded by all kinds of shopping, hotels and restaurants. Everything was decorated for Christmas or in the process of being decorated so it was very festive.
Sunday we rented a car and headed up to the wine country. The drive was much shorter than I thought it would be, just over an hour to Sonoma. We visited the Sebastiani winery first, our bartender Greg was just great and we spent a couple hours there tasting wine and having a great time. Then on Greg’s suggestion we headed up to the Kunde winery where his fiancé works for some more tasting.
After Kunde we drove over the mountain on a country road surrounded by forest to Napa Valley to the Cakebread Cellars winery, a winery that an architect friend of mine had brought us wine from on occation.
We did the wine tasting at Cakebread and headed down the road to the Napa Valley Grille for diner. We sat outside and had some more wine and appetizers and watched the California sun set behind the mountains. We then headed inside for diner, again very good and highly recommended.
Monday we did a Nob Hill tour, Nob Hill is the part of town where the silver and railroad barons that built San Francisco built their homes. The Fairmont Hotel was actually one of these guys house when it was originally built.
The tour is an architectural and history tour visiting the properties of these men and was very interesting and a lot of fun for me as an architectural designer.
This is where this unbelievable trip took and even more unbelievable turn. We decided to take the ferry over to Sausalito, the seaside town on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from S.F.
The ferry ride was very nice, with the sun setting over the hills and the G.G. Bridge. We got off the ferry and were watching this street performer with a dog dressed in sunglasses, a hat and jacket lying prone on top of his guitar.
He asked if anyone had been to the Stones concert on Sunday and how good they were. My wife spoke up and said we were going to the Tuesday night show and we were going to be on stage.
I hear this voice behind me say “That’s funny, I’ll be on stage tomorrow night also, I play sax for the band” I turn around and standing there is Bobby Keys, the long-time sax player for the Rolling Stones. I introduced myself to him and seemed a little surprised that I knew who he was. He introduced us to his wife and son, a friend of is son’s and the Stones’ make-up artist who was also with them.
After talking for a little while we separated and my wife and I headed out for some shopping. We decided to have a glass of wine before catching the last ferry back to S.F. so we went into this restaurant called Scoma’s a Sausalito landmark since 1890 under various names.
Bobby and company were in there an to make a long story short he ended up sitting at our table talking with us for the hour and a half before the last ferry back headed out. I talked music with him and my wife pumped Caroline the make-up artist for make-up pointers.
They were all just wonderful people and we had a great time. The were very interested in our story of winning the trip, as was everyone we ran into while there. Finally Bobby says “I want you to be my guests backstage tomorrow night” you could have knocked me over with a feather! He took down our names and gave us his hotel info and told me to call them on Tuesday and everything would be set up.
We got on the ferry with them and continued to party and have a wonderful time, parting ways when we got back to the city.
Tuesday my wife wanted to get her hair done for the show and went to a salon she had found online that had some very good reviews, Level 4 Salon. They did a fantastic job on her hair. I went back to Chinatown for some shopping a photo taking, I think Chinatown was my favorite part of San Francisco that I saw.
I called Holly, Bobby’s wife and she said everything was set up, just go to “will call” after six and pick up the passes.
We went to a French restaurant called Anjou for a late lunch, again highly recommended, and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the show.
We decided to take a cab to SBC Park rather than taking the bus with all the other prizewinners as they were leaving earlier than we wanted to.
After arriving at the ballpark we made our way to the will call window and got our backstage passes and proceeded to the “Rattlesnake Inn”, the Rolling Stones private pre-show lounge. The tent was set up just outside the stadium with an extensive buffet and open bar.
Most of the supporting band members were there, but none of the 4 main Stones. Caroline came up to us and said hi and said that he guys had been busy all day doing TV interviews so they probably wouldn’t make it in that evening. She introduced us to Keith Richards’ guitar tech who also thought it was cool we had won the trip and gave us each a pick from the tour.
The only famous people I saw backstage other than the band members were Steve Perry the former lead singer for Journey and the comedian Bobby Slayton, I talked to him for a minute.
After they kicked everyone out of there we headed to find our seats. We ended up literally in back of the stage. They took us up the stairs to our “seats” on stage. The stage was set up with a 5-story screen in the middle and on either side 3 tiers of box standing room only seating. We were on the third level about 25 feet above the stage on the left hand side right above the horn section.
The show was great, I’ve seen the Stones several times an each time I’m blown away by the tightness of the band, they still have it after all these years. Mick didn’t show his 62 years at any point of the show, running and skipping from one end of the massive stage to the other.
About half way through the show we had to go to the bathroom, so an usher escorted us down the stairs to the port-a-potties backstage. On the way down we saw Bobby Keys taking a break and hollered down at him. The usher was saying “No…you can’t…don’t talk to….” Bobby yells out “Marc and Lore!!” and came running over to us and gave us both a big hug. The usher looks at us and says “Do YOU know HIM?!” We just looked at each other and said yes we did.
We thanked Bobby again for the passes and told him how much fun we had. He asked if Holly had our phone number and said he’d see us in Dallas.
The rest of the show was great; we just walked around on a cloud before heading back to the hotel to fall asleep with big grins on our face.
Wednesday we headed back home. The whole trip was just too much fun for words and we are already planning our next trip back to the city by the bay. Maybe next time I can take a day and head to Monterey to do some kelp forest diving.
If you’ve never been to San Francisco, do yourself a favor and make the trip. Make sure to take a day, or two, and go to the wine country. There is so much to do we already have a long list of things for the next trip.
I got a phone call from a local radio station in late September letting me know I had won a trip to San Francisco to see the Rolling Stones.
The prize included 3 days/2 nights, (Nov. 14-16) at the Pan Pacific Hotel, transportation to the show at SBC Park and seats on stage to see the show.
We decided to extend the trip to include the proceeding weekend, and booked the extra days at the Pan Pacific.
We arrived on San Francisco on Friday, Nov. 11th and took the BART subway train from the airport to downtown S.F. After finding our bearings we walked the 3-4 blocks to the hotel and checked in. The Pan Pacific is a very nice 4 star hotel in the Union Square district of S.F., a perfect location to base your visit as it is right in the heart of downtown and with the city’s fantastic mass transit system, you can get almost anywhere from there very easily. Walking is also an option to many places from there.
Friday night we just walked around Union Square and got our bearings. We at a place called Max’s, there are several around town and have been around for a long time. They have an extensive menu, open for breakfast, lunch and diner. It was very good and one of many recommended places to eat that we hit on the trip.
Saturday we did a walking tour of Chinatown with Wok Wiz tours run by Chef Shirley Fong-Torres www.wokwiz.com The tour included visiting a fortune cookie factory, a Chinese market, a wok shop, an herb shop and a demonstration by a Chinese calligraphy artist, we purchased one of his paintings for a souvenir. The tour ended with a Dim Sum lunch at a place called Four Winds, I think, very tasty.
The rest of day we spent shopping in the Union Square area. Union Square is a park surrounded by all kinds of shopping, hotels and restaurants. Everything was decorated for Christmas or in the process of being decorated so it was very festive.
Sunday we rented a car and headed up to the wine country. The drive was much shorter than I thought it would be, just over an hour to Sonoma. We visited the Sebastiani winery first, our bartender Greg was just great and we spent a couple hours there tasting wine and having a great time. Then on Greg’s suggestion we headed up to the Kunde winery where his fiancé works for some more tasting.
After Kunde we drove over the mountain on a country road surrounded by forest to Napa Valley to the Cakebread Cellars winery, a winery that an architect friend of mine had brought us wine from on occation.
We did the wine tasting at Cakebread and headed down the road to the Napa Valley Grille for diner. We sat outside and had some more wine and appetizers and watched the California sun set behind the mountains. We then headed inside for diner, again very good and highly recommended.
Monday we did a Nob Hill tour, Nob Hill is the part of town where the silver and railroad barons that built San Francisco built their homes. The Fairmont Hotel was actually one of these guys house when it was originally built.
The tour is an architectural and history tour visiting the properties of these men and was very interesting and a lot of fun for me as an architectural designer.
This is where this unbelievable trip took and even more unbelievable turn. We decided to take the ferry over to Sausalito, the seaside town on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from S.F.
The ferry ride was very nice, with the sun setting over the hills and the G.G. Bridge. We got off the ferry and were watching this street performer with a dog dressed in sunglasses, a hat and jacket lying prone on top of his guitar.
He asked if anyone had been to the Stones concert on Sunday and how good they were. My wife spoke up and said we were going to the Tuesday night show and we were going to be on stage.
I hear this voice behind me say “That’s funny, I’ll be on stage tomorrow night also, I play sax for the band” I turn around and standing there is Bobby Keys, the long-time sax player for the Rolling Stones. I introduced myself to him and seemed a little surprised that I knew who he was. He introduced us to his wife and son, a friend of is son’s and the Stones’ make-up artist who was also with them.
After talking for a little while we separated and my wife and I headed out for some shopping. We decided to have a glass of wine before catching the last ferry back to S.F. so we went into this restaurant called Scoma’s a Sausalito landmark since 1890 under various names.
Bobby and company were in there an to make a long story short he ended up sitting at our table talking with us for the hour and a half before the last ferry back headed out. I talked music with him and my wife pumped Caroline the make-up artist for make-up pointers.
They were all just wonderful people and we had a great time. The were very interested in our story of winning the trip, as was everyone we ran into while there. Finally Bobby says “I want you to be my guests backstage tomorrow night” you could have knocked me over with a feather! He took down our names and gave us his hotel info and told me to call them on Tuesday and everything would be set up.
We got on the ferry with them and continued to party and have a wonderful time, parting ways when we got back to the city.
Tuesday my wife wanted to get her hair done for the show and went to a salon she had found online that had some very good reviews, Level 4 Salon. They did a fantastic job on her hair. I went back to Chinatown for some shopping a photo taking, I think Chinatown was my favorite part of San Francisco that I saw.
I called Holly, Bobby’s wife and she said everything was set up, just go to “will call” after six and pick up the passes.
We went to a French restaurant called Anjou for a late lunch, again highly recommended, and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the show.
We decided to take a cab to SBC Park rather than taking the bus with all the other prizewinners as they were leaving earlier than we wanted to.
After arriving at the ballpark we made our way to the will call window and got our backstage passes and proceeded to the “Rattlesnake Inn”, the Rolling Stones private pre-show lounge. The tent was set up just outside the stadium with an extensive buffet and open bar.
Most of the supporting band members were there, but none of the 4 main Stones. Caroline came up to us and said hi and said that he guys had been busy all day doing TV interviews so they probably wouldn’t make it in that evening. She introduced us to Keith Richards’ guitar tech who also thought it was cool we had won the trip and gave us each a pick from the tour.
The only famous people I saw backstage other than the band members were Steve Perry the former lead singer for Journey and the comedian Bobby Slayton, I talked to him for a minute.
After they kicked everyone out of there we headed to find our seats. We ended up literally in back of the stage. They took us up the stairs to our “seats” on stage. The stage was set up with a 5-story screen in the middle and on either side 3 tiers of box standing room only seating. We were on the third level about 25 feet above the stage on the left hand side right above the horn section.
The show was great, I’ve seen the Stones several times an each time I’m blown away by the tightness of the band, they still have it after all these years. Mick didn’t show his 62 years at any point of the show, running and skipping from one end of the massive stage to the other.
About half way through the show we had to go to the bathroom, so an usher escorted us down the stairs to the port-a-potties backstage. On the way down we saw Bobby Keys taking a break and hollered down at him. The usher was saying “No…you can’t…don’t talk to….” Bobby yells out “Marc and Lore!!” and came running over to us and gave us both a big hug. The usher looks at us and says “Do YOU know HIM?!” We just looked at each other and said yes we did.
We thanked Bobby again for the passes and told him how much fun we had. He asked if Holly had our phone number and said he’d see us in Dallas.
The rest of the show was great; we just walked around on a cloud before heading back to the hotel to fall asleep with big grins on our face.
Wednesday we headed back home. The whole trip was just too much fun for words and we are already planning our next trip back to the city by the bay. Maybe next time I can take a day and head to Monterey to do some kelp forest diving.
If you’ve never been to San Francisco, do yourself a favor and make the trip. Make sure to take a day, or two, and go to the wine country. There is so much to do we already have a long list of things for the next trip.
